Spring is in the air. Autumn is in the heart

Dear blog,

It’s been a while.

Much has happened since my last entry.

The world has changed considerably, but not many would notice. Most go about their lives in their own personal fog, seeing just in front of them, just enough to get through the haze, so as not to bump into inanimate objects, animate objects, or fall off the edge.

That’s why the main path remains the main path.

Yes, pockets of folk find minor paths and deviate, change direction, searching for newer paths, of older, smarter paths, like the one that leads to a cleaner environment, a softer, safer, kinder, smarter living place, but the big path, the one most of us are on, the one I call the lemming-path, that one remains the same, packed, chocked, clogged with scrambling, stumbling humanity.

Just when you think it is safe to relax, to buy a new telly, to go on a short holiday to Lithuania, Georgia invades your home town in Ossetia, bombs your neighbour and you freak out, scream, wail and complain bitterly, which is right and proper.

Your screams are heard and so your Russian mates invade Georgia and bomb the hell out of anybody living in the vicinity and Georgians scream and shout and run for their lives, which is understandable in the circumstances.

On another side, in the US, the election campaign, the one that never ends, takes a new and amazing turn.

A woman, one that no-one has ever heard of, is promoted out of nowhere to become the running mate of the Republican offering, John McCain.

She shoots wild animals for fun; she runs Alaska; her husband races huskies; her kids are numerous, one of them not long born; another, an older child still in school, is pregnant.

Her photograph has never appeared in any paper outside of Alaska, ever.

She stands to speak at the Republican convention.

She uses her index finger to point, they all do, it’s a feature of American political campaigning. All candidates walk on stage and point. There are 100,000 people in the room, the candidates know all of them and point at each one in turn, as thought astounded and amazed that amongst the great throng that they, that individual, of all people, would be there supporting them, the candidate.

Suddenly the entire nation is mesmerised, Sarah Pallin, the woman, is everywhere, in all papers, on all tv channels, she is magical, wondrous, she can make American great, again, if only they would allow her to carry her gun, her moose-murdering gun, into the United Nations, then we could be safe, secure in our own homes, far from the madding crowd.

Oh, forgot, the other candidate is an African-American, the first one ever. He’s been in all the papers for years, but the gun toting woman has knocked him. As far as my memory will stretch, I think he is the only candidate I have not seen point. This might be good sign, but I really have no idea.

Someone tells me an elephant has recovered from its heroin addiction. I check the papers. It seems true.

On the under-side, where I live, the Murray Darling Basin, once Australia’s food bowl, is pronounced dead, finished, buried under the weight of over-use.

On this side of under, in West Australia, August was one of the driest months ever, right before it, July, one of the wettest months ever.

Icecaps are melting. Whales and dolphins are plundered. Flora and fauna Species are disappearing. Languages and cultures are dying. Populations and mono-cultures are exploding.

On this very day I am forced to vote, under threat of a fine, for a new government in West Australia, a state that is one third of this lucky country. Lucky because we own an entire continent and don’t have to fight anyone for land, just each other and, occasionally, the people we stole it from.

The choice in this election is gloomy. The rest of Australia couldn’t care less. We are so far away, so distant, almost foreign. We’re good for a visit, for a raid: drop in, get a big paying job with a mining company, buy a house, pay no attention to the community, work your guts out, resign, sell the house, head home, pockets full.

West Australia is an open pit.

The choices: There’s an increasingly puffy looking, intensely grey haired, almost grumpy, but nice enough bloke from the deep-south who leads a pack of dysfunctional geese; and an over-fed, edgy, almost grumpy, but nice enough bloke, from a posh suburb who leads a pack of dysfunctional geese.

As for us, the voters, we are, of course, by definition, stupid, inane, incapable of thinking for ourselves, know nothing about anything and will believe anything about anything.

We are American, Russian, Chinese, French, modern citizens of the globe, you-tubers, face-bookers, vacuums.

We are Ossetians, Georgians, Tibetans, Kurds, but we own our own homes and the only invaders are drugged out psychopaths, or power obsessed narcissists.

(I have just been for a walk. I voted. For a goose, an emerging goose, and because we have a preferential voting system, of the two dominant geese, I placed the lesser goose second last on a card of five, with the big goose last. Not much of a choice between geese.)

I am now sixty.

Personal changes are occurring.

Bones, once broken, are now beginning to tell me they remember and their time has come to make me pay.

I find myself grunting, involuntarily, in quiet exasperation.

The grunts are inevitably followed by my head, shaking, as though trying to empty itself, to set free some impediment.

There’s not long to go. My time left is nowhere near the time I’ve had.

There is no doubt in my mind, that collectively, we, humans, are insane.

There are very few among the certifiably sane who are not psychopathic, sociopathic, or narcissistic.

If you have reached this far, you are probably thinking, this bloke is an incurable pessimist, no, far from it, I am a committed optimist, but also a believer in embracing both sides, all sides and today, when I woke up, I embraced the darkness.

So what’s the point, if we are doomed, if there’s no hope?

But there is, there always is. The elephant recovered and so can we.

And, anyway, whatever happens, I wouldn’t have missed it for quids, the journey. It’s been the trip of a lifetime.

Peace, love, diversity

Jon